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Cuffe & Taylor’s Peter Taylor has told IQ about the company’s “unique” touring opportunity after adding Forest Live to its portfolio and soaring past 120,000 ticket sales for The Piece Hall in Halifax this summer.
The Live Nation promoter has achieved huge success by securing big name acts such as Britney Spears, Lionel Richie, Gary Barlow, Sting, Little Mix and Christina Aguilera for UK towns away from the traditional touring circuit.
The firm programmes all live music events at the 5,500-cap The Piece Hall and 8,000-cap Scarborough Open Air Theatre, both in Yorkshire, UK. It also promotes Lytham Festival and Bedford Park Concerts, in addition to events at Cardiff Castle and Chepstow Racecourse.
Earlier this year, it agreed an exclusive seven-year contract to present Forestry England’s outdoor live music series, Forest Live.
“I think the element of sustainability that we’re bringing to those concerts and the ability to add those to our circuit gives us a unique opportunity that no other promoter in the UK has,” Taylor tells IQ. “We now have the most outdoor venues on a permanent contracted basis, so we’re now the number one outdoor summer concert promoter. We’re hugely excited that adding [Forest Live] to the portfolio gives us a great opportunity to tour an artist and to work with us on an exclusive basis.”
“We can play the big venues at the weekend and do midweeks in some of the smaller venues, which really helps artists”
Taylor feels the 6,000-10,000-capacity range represents the company’s “sweet spot”.
“We’ve still got our 15 to 20,000 and our 20 to 30,000 [venues], so we’ve kind of got something for everybody,” he says. “We can play the big venues at the weekend and do midweeks in some of the smaller venues, which really helps artists touring on the road. We’re in a really unique position.”
This year’s Lytham Festival in Lancashire featured headline sets by Def Leppard & Motley Crue, Jamiroquai, George Ezra, Sting and Lionel Richie, while Scarborough Open Air Theatre’s summer season has included gigs by Hollywood Vampires, Pulp, Rag’N’Bone Man and Blondie.
Elsewhere, The Piece Hall is set for its biggest ever year after ticket sales for this summer programme smashed the 100,000 mark. The West Yorkshire venue welcomes Limp Bizkit tomorrow, with Boygenius set to perform two dates from 22-23 August, before its 2023 line-up closes with Orbital (25 August) and The Charlatans and Johnny Marr (26 August).
Cuffe and Taylor, which was founded by Taylor and co-owner Daniel Cuffe, was acquired by Live Nation in 2017 and secured an exclusive five-year deal to programme live music events in the courtyard of The Piece Hall – the world’s only remaining Georgian cloth hall – in 2022.
“It’s taken on a life of its own and I think that’s down to that space and how unique it is”
“I don’t think I’ve ever done as many shows in the second year at a new venue,” says Taylor. “It’s got 22 shows this year [compared to] 12 last year, so it’s been quite a jump, but the thing about this venue, and you don’t take it for granted, is that the audience are incredibly engaged. It’s been a case of you put a show on and it sells out.
“Agents are starting to hear about the place and now, certainly from this year and even more for next year, they’re coming to us. It’s taken on a life of its own and I think that’s down to that space and how unique it is. I would like to hope that in a few years, The Piece Hall is seen as the UK’s premier outdoor music venue. It’s in a league of its own.”
Acts to have performed at the site from June to August include Queens of the Stone Age, George Ezra, Sting, Madness and James.
“The people who buy the tickets seem to crave different things,” adds Nicky Chance-Thompson MBE DL, CEO of The Piece Hall Charitable Trust. “This year, we had Boygenius, Queens of the Stone Age, Sting, Madness, and all of them sold out. There’s something about being in this beautiful building and enjoying the concert that really resonates with people.
“It’s often said to me by local people, ‘I can’t believe who you’ve brought to Halifax.’ But I’ve always thought the venue, the town and the borough deserve it. It is an amazing building, being utilised in the right way – a living heritage, as opposed to museum heritage.”
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Halifax Piece Hall is set for its biggest ever year after ticket sales for this summer programme smashed the 100,000 mark.
The 5,500-cap West Yorkshire, UK venue will host 21 nights of live music throughout June, July and August with headline shows from the likes of Sting, Queens Of The Stone Age, George Ezra, Madness, Limp Bizkit, The Lumineers, Rag’n’Bone Man, Hozier, Boygenius, Orbital and James.
Live at The Piece Hall co-promoters, The Piece Hall Trust and Live Nation-owned Cuffe and Taylor, have revealed this year’s ticket sales have broken box office records.
“Last year we broke box office records when we sold 60,000 tickets,” says Cuffe and Taylor co-founder Peter Taylor. “To now top 100,000 sales – even before our first show with Madness on June 16 – just shows what a truly special venue this is.
“The music industry has certainly sat up and took notice and huge stars – from across many diverse genres from pop to rock to legendary dance acts – want to come and play here. Together with The Piece Hall Trust, we will continue to strive to bring the biggest names in music to Yorkshire and this incredible venue.”
“Our strong partnership with Cuffe and Taylor means we are able to bring world class artists to our iconic venue”
The Grade I listed Piece Hall originally opened in 1779 for the trading of ‘pieces’ of cloth produced by Yorkshire’s famous woollen mills and is the only remaining Georgian cloth hall in the world. It has welcomed more than 10.5 million visitors through its gates since reopening in 2017.
“What a phenomenal milestone to have reached,” adds Nicky Chance-Thompson DL, CEO of The Piece Hall Charitable Trust. “Our strong partnership with Cuffe and Taylor means we are able to bring world class artists to our iconic venue, and these sales prove just how big the appetite is for quality live music at The Piece Hall.
“This is a huge deal for Halifax and Calderdale in terms of the visitor economy, investment into the area and creating a powerful feeling of pride in place.”
Since 2016, Cuffe and Taylor, which entered into a co-promoter partnership with The Piece Hall Trust last year, has exclusively programmed all live music events at the 8,000-cap Scarborough Open Air Theatre – including massive headline shows by the likes of Britney Spears, Lionel Richie, Kylie Minogue, Christian Aguilera, Biffy Clyro, Sam Fender and Lewis Capaldi.
The Olivier Award-winning promoters are also responsible for staging UK tours with Britney Spears, Rod Stewart, Mariah Carey and Little Mix, while also festivals such as Lancashire’s Lytham Festival.
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The LGBTIQ+ List 2022 – IQ Magazine’s second annual celebration of queer professionals who make an immense impact in the international live music business – was published in the Pride edition (issue 112) last month.
The July 2022 issue, which is available to read now, was made possible thanks to support from Ticketmaster.
To get to know this year’s queer pioneers a little better, we interviewed each individual on their challenges, triumphs, advice and more.
Throughout the next month, IQ will publish a new interview each day. Catch up on the previous interview with Patrick Janssen, marketing manager at Live Nation GSA (Germany, Switzerland, Austria).
The series continues with Peter Taylor (he/him/his), founder of Cuffe and Taylor in the UK.
Tell us about a personal triumph in your career
Taking the Lytham Festival in my hometown in Lancashire from a one-day, 4,000-capacity event to the 2022 festival, which ran over ten days with an overall attendance of 200,000 people. And if I’m allowed another: getting Britney Spears to play Scarborough Open Air Theatre!
What advice could you give to young queer professionals?
Have courage and determination. Don’t ever be afraid to speak up, and remember to be kind.
What’s the best mistake you’ve ever made?
Selling my bar contract in the early days at a stupidly low price was a mistake that taught me a lot, very quickly.
One thing the live industry could do to be a more inclusive place
Keep educating ourselves and each other. To be honest, having just finished the RuPaul Drag Race UK Tour, I actually learnt a lot myself about gender and how people identify. I also think music and show business have always been good industries for people to feel inclusive and safe.
“Getting Britney Spears to play Scarborough Open Air Theatre was a personal triumph”
Tell us about a professional challenge you’ve come across as a queer person in the industry.
Not specifically, but I’d say there are still undertones of homophobia in our industry and we’re still very white-straight-male dominated. I’ve lost count of the times when I’ve experienced this. I have the confidence to call people out these days and I’d like to think we’ve moved on a bit now.
A cause you support
Pride Nation. It’s an initiative across our parent company, Live Nation, to promote inclusivity among our LGBTQ+ colleagues. It’s a good channel for education and learning, plus it supports some amazing organisations.
The queer act you’re itching to see live this year
Well… I’d say the Christina Aguilera show I’m promoting in Scarborough this year. She is an iconic LGBTQ+ act, and we’ve just finished our 2022 tour with Lea Salonga – a massive gay icon, not least because she’s a real Disney princess!
Your favourite queer space
In Lytham, where I live, we’re next door to Blackpool, so anyone visiting me always has a trip to Funny Girls! I also went to Wilderness Festival last year and that felt really inclusive and welcoming.
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The director of Live Nation-owned UK promoter Cuffe and Taylor has told IQ that business is bouncing back strongly from the pandemic.
Cuffe and Taylor, who have staged tours with superstars such as Britney Spears, Rod Stewart, Mariah Carey and Little Mix, curate Lancashire’s 20,000-cap Lytham Festival and programme all live music events at the 8,000-cap Scarborough Open Air Theatre in Yorkshire.
The company’s Peter Taylor reports the firm is selling more tickets than ever before.
“We used to be quite reliant on stadium business, but we’ve created a much more sustainable business that isn’t necessarily relying on a headline artist,” Taylor says IQ. “We’re actually selling more tickets overall as a company. We’re on track to sell in excess of 750,000 tickets [this year], and 2023 is going to be in excess of a million tickets, driven by our theatre business and our outdoor venues.
“The demand is there, we actually haven’t seen a slowdown. Even in January, which is traditionally a slightly softer month, we have quite a number of onsales, all of which delivered great ticket sales.
“It’s been incredible how the business has bounced back, how resilient it has been and how it is even stronger now than it was before the pandemic. It’s been crazy busy but, as I remind everybody every day, this is what we wished for.”
After two years on inaction, Cuffe & Taylor’s flagship Lytham Festival is returning as an expanded 10-day event between 28 June and 10 July with headliners Diana Ross, The Strokes, Lewis Capaldi, Snow Patrol, Nile Rodgers & Chic, Duran Duran, Elbow, Simply Red, Tears For Fears and Paul Weller.
In the festival’s absence, the promoter launched the six-day WonderHall at Lytham Hall in 2021, welcoming artists such as Tom Jones, Anne-Marie and Jools Holland and his Rhythm & Blues Orchestra. The event will return in 2023.
“This year is a bit of an anomaly in that we’re doing two weeks in Lytham, so we didn’t want to saturate the market and compete against ourselves,” explains Taylor. “But in ’23, we’re going to go back to five nights and bring back WonderHall. We’ll do Lytham Festival at the end of June, beginning of July, and then WonderHall at the end of August.”
The 2022 line-up for Scarborough, meanwhile, kicks off with a sold-out show by Sam Fender on 27 May, with other acts scheduled to include Crowded House (11 June), Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons (25 June), Westlife (23 July), Christina Aguilera (2 August) and Lewis Capaldi (11 August).
“When I joined Live Nation I was the only promoter at Cuffe and Taylor. Now, I have a team of five”
“I always think Scarborough is an easy sell for tickets, and it doesn’t take a lot of hard tickets out of the market either because it’s a local audience that are proud that somebody like Christina Aguilera’s coming to the town,” he says. “That being said, clearly we bring people in from outside the area because there’s not a hotel room to be had in Scarborough when the concerts are on and we’re working with the council in Scarborough on a master plan for the area around the Open Air Theatre to kickstart that regeneration.”
Last month, the North West-based promoter also announced it had secured an exclusive deal to programme live music events at The Piece Hall in Halifax. Cuffe & Taylor will co-promote the 5,500-cap venue biggest ever summer season of live music in 2022 with The Piece Hall Trust, with headline shows by Jessie Ware, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, Nile Rodgers & Chic, Pete Tong & The Heritage Orchestra, Tom Grennan, Paloma Faith, Paul Weller, Primal Scream and Tom Jones.
“The venue wanted to look at a different model and we presented to them the opportunity to work with us in a joint venture,” explains Taylor. “Halifax is perfect, because it sits between Lytham and Scarborough and some things that don’t work at Scarborough and Lytham will work at the Piece Hall because of the capacity.
“It’s a great venue and everything that we’ve put in there has sold extremely strongly. We’ve got some other acts to announce, we’ll probably be doing about 16 shows with them this year. And the deal we’ve signed is a five-year agreement, so we’re already well into programming for 2023.”
Taylor reveals the company currently has no plans to revive its Greenwich Music Time London concert series, which was last held in 2019.
“We didn’t do anything in Greenwich for the last couple of years because we felt the market was softer,” admits Taylor. “Never say never, but we’re finding that getting a foothold in the regional venues – where there’s less competition – is actually proving to be our niche. And at the moment, I’m very keen to expand that regional growth into other areas.”
Cuffe and Taylor, which was founded by Taylor and co-owner Daniel Cuffe, recently celebrated five years as part of Live Nation following its 2017 acquisition.
“It’s been a good home for us,” reflects Taylor. “It’s allowed us to have the network of support that Live Nation is able to offer, while allowing me to really focus on building the business. When you’ve got your own business, you’re everything: the accountant, the lawyer, HR, which doesn’t allow you to focus on developing new business.
“When I joined Live Nation, I was the only promoter [at Cuffe and Taylor]. And now I have a team of five and we’re all on the frontline securing tours, artists and venues, and that has made all the difference.”
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Live Nation’s Cuffe and Taylor have secured an exclusive five-year deal to programme live music events at The Piece Hall in Halifax, UK.
The North West-based promoter will co-promote its biggest ever summer season of live music in 2022 with The Piece Hall Trust, with headline shows by Jessie Ware, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, Nile Rodgers & Chic, Pete Tong & The Heritage Orchestra, Tom Grennan, Paloma Faith, Paul Weller, Primal Scream and Tom Jones.
The Live at the Piece Hall series will take place within the venue’s 5,500-cap courtyard across June and July.
“We are beyond delighted to confirm we have entered into an exclusive five-year agreement with The Piece Hall Trust,” says Cuffe and Taylor founder Peter Taylor. “This historic and iconic Yorkshire venue is simply stunning. We pledge to build on the work already undertaken by the Trust and deliver an exciting programme which has wide appeal for music fans.
“Cuffe and Taylor have an amazing track record in delivering live shows at iconic and historic venues across the UK”
“Live Nation work with some of the biggest music acts in the world and we cannot wait to bring major artists here to Halifax to play this special venue.”
Since 2016, Cuffe and Taylor has exclusively programmed all live music events at the 8,000-cap Scarborough Open Air Theatre, also in Yorkshire, including headline shows by the likes of Britney Spears, Lionel Richie, Kylie Minogue, Stereophonics, Biffy Clyro, Duran Duran and Lewis Capaldi.
They have also staged UK tours with Britney Spears, Rod Stewart, Mariah Carey and Little Mix, while also curating major festivals and events such as Lancashire’s Lytham Festival and Greenwich Music Time.
“Cuffe and Taylor have an amazing track record in delivering live shows at iconic and historic venues across the UK, and we look forward to working with them to build on our great track record to date,” adds Piece Hall CEO Nicky Chance-Thompson.
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Live Nation has announced a series of live drive-in concerts across 12 venues in the UK this summer, featuring acts including Dizzee Rascal, Gary Numan, Beverley Knight, the Streets, Sigala, Lightning Seeds, the Snuts and Kaiser Chiefs.
Drive-in concerts have proved to be a popular feature of lockdown life, with concertgoers getting their live music fix from the safety of their cars in countries including Germany, Denmark, the US, Lithuania and the Netherlands.
Now, the format is allowing the UK live industry to step back into the driving seat. Live Nation’s Utilita Live from the Drive-in series, which kicks off in mid-July, is more live music-focused than previously announced UK drive-in events, hosted by the likes of Mainstage Festivals and Live Nation-owned Ticketmaster.
The 300-carpacity (© 2020 IQ) concerts will be able to accommodate up to 2,100 people, with tickets available for two to seven people per car. Standard or premium tickets, which include guaranteed location in the front three rows and priority exit at end of show, will be available, with prices reportedly ranging from £25 to £100 per car.
Differing from many other drive-in shows and in a similar vein to Italy’s proposed bike-in concerts, concertgoers will be able to enjoy the performance through the full sound system – rather than car radio – in a dedicated area next to their vehicle. Fans are encouraged to bring folding chairs if they wish to sit during the gigs.
“The drive-in format is a thoughtful and fun way to safely bring one million Brits out of ‘entertainment lockdown’”
The shows will take place across 12 sites, including in the grounds of venues such as Birmingham Resorts World Arena and the National Bowl in Milton Keynes; at sports complexes including the University of Bolton football stadium and Cheltenhem and Newmarket racecourses; at airports in Bristol (Filton Airfield), Leeds (Leeds East Airport) and Teesside (Teesside International Airport); and various other outdoor event locations including the Royal Highland Centre in Edinburgh, Lincolnshire Showground and Central Docks Liverpool Waters.
Live Nation also plans to announce the London venues, as well as more artists and dates in due course.
“We are excited to bring Utilita Live From The Drive-In to fans across the UK,” comments Live Nation’s Peter Taylor. “This outdoor concert series was created as a way to reimagine the live music experience during a time of social distancing by allowing fans to enjoy concerts in the safest way possible.
“Each event will comply with all official government guidelines in order to protect fans, artists, crews and staff. We look forward to announcing some of the biggest names across UK music and bringing these fantastic artists to a city near you.”
“As we find new ways to navigate today’s world of social distancing,” adds Utilita CMO Jem Maidment, “we believe the drive-in format is a thoughtful and fun way to safely bring one million Brits out of ‘entertainment lockdown’ this summer 2020.”
Tickets for Utilita Live from the Drive-in go on sale at 10 a.m. on 22 June here. Further information on performers, entry prices, on-sale dates and restrictions can be found here.
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